HAMILTON — While many couples whispered sweet nothings to one another, Hamilton School District and its teachers union hammered out a tentative agreement during overnight negotiations on Valentine’s Day.

Board Member Richard Kanka, chair of the negotiating committee, said planned to present the plan to the board in an executive session at the Wednesday night meeting. The teachers have been working without a contract since last year.

“I’m happy to report that we have reached a tentative settlement with Hamilton Township Education Association,” he said.

The agreement, signed Feb. 15, will have to be approved by the board and the full membership of the union before it becomes official. In addition, the board also went over its new manual on contracting and a new, expanded audit, spurred by the scandal that ousted former Hamilton Mayor John Bencivengo.

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The board urged the two-part audit after the scandal involving former Hamilton Mayor John Bencivengo. Bencivengo was convicted in November of five federal charges related to the school board corruption case against him. Marliese Ljuba, the government’s cooperating witness in the case, testified she bribed him with $12,400 in exchange for his influence with members of the Board of Education.

Ljuba, at the time the district’s health insurance broker, wanted to preserve her business with the township, which had operated without a contract since 2009.

The district would do all of its purchasing through the purchasing office, rather than approved by separate departments. Also, the district will go to competitive contracting practices for its insurance practices. The board will vote on the manual and audit next week.

Connie Silakoski, a representative from the citizens advocacy group Citizens Campaign, which has been lobbying for these reforms since last year, said she was glad to see the proposal come through.

“You are putting the faith back in the community that has been lost in the past year,” she said.

The group also pushed for similar reforms in Hamilton Township, which also passed an ordinance Tuesday that included professional services contracting.

Board Member Patty Del Giudice also brought up an issue with the district’s monthly suspension report at Steinert High School. Of the 18 suspensions in January, more than a third were for intimidation and threats. That, she said, was evidence of an intense bullying problem at the high school.

“We do have a drug problem at Steinert,” she said. “And there is a tie-in with the bullying issue. They are overlapping.”

She said she heard from her child in the school as well as others about widespread use of the drug Molly, or MDMA, at the school. She also asked whether the district could reinstate random K9 drug searches in the schools.

Joseph Slavin, newly minted director of administration, said many of the suspensions and bullying reports from online harassment on social media outside of school. He said parents and others reported the online bullying that occurred outside of school. He cautioned against solely increasing punishments without including education.

“Education of the children will stop the bullying you have to go after that first,” he said.

Board President Jeff Hewitson said the administration should look at revising its policies in the near future to try and deal with the bullying problems.

“What we are doing right now is not working,” he said.

Parla said he wanted to make a “concerted effort” to address the bullying problems at the district’s schools.

“This is a problem not just here in Hamilton. It is in every high school and every middle school across the nation, but we can’t accept that,” Parla said. “If we just continue with business as usual it is just going to spiral.”